U.S.|Teenager Is Accused of Live-Streaming a Friend’s Rape on Periscope

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Teenager Is Accused of Live-Streaming a Friend’s Rape on Periscope

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The Ohio teenager has been accused of live-streaming a rape with the social media app Periscope.

By Mike McPhate

April 18, 2016

When an Ohio teenager witnessed her 17-year-old friend being raped, according to officials, she not only failed to help the victim, she pointed her phone and streamed a live video of it on the Periscope app.

The teenager, Marina Lonina, 18, faces a spate of charges as severe as those facing Raymond Gates, 29, the man accused in the attack. Both have been charged with kidnapping, rape, sexual battery and pandering sexual matter involving a minor.

“I have never seen a case such as this where you would actually live-stream a sexual assault,” Ron O’Brien, the Franklin County prosecutor, said in remarks to the local news media.

The prosecutor’s office said Ms. Lonina and the victim, friends from the same high school outside Columbus, met Mr. Gates for the first time while hanging out at a shopping mall in the city, the day before the alleged assault. He proposed meeting the next day.

On the evening of Feb. 27, all three were gathered at a residence in Columbus where Mr. Gates pinned the 17-year-old down and raped her as Ms. Lonina used Periscope, an app owned by Twitter, to live-stream the attack, the authorities said.

A friend of Ms. Lonina’s in another state saw the video and contacted the authorities.

Both defendants pleaded not guilty on Friday.

Mr. O’Brien, the prosecutor, said Ms. Lonina had apparently hoped that live-streaming the attack would help to stop it, but that she became enthralled by positive feedback online.

“She got caught up in the likes,” he said.

Ms. Lonina’s lawyer, Sam Shamansky, has portrayed his client as the victim of a much older man, who bought the teenagers a bottle of vodka.

“You don’t want to lose track of the fact that she’s a high school student and she and her friend were clearly taken advantage of,” he said.

Ms. Lonina told the police that she filmed the encounter to gather evidence of a crime. Mr. Shamansky, who has viewed the Periscope video, said Ms. Lonina made “substantial” efforts to thwart the attack, though he declined to specify them.

“She was swept up by the gravity of the situation,” Mr. Shamansky said. “And as she immediately told the police, she was filming in order to preserve, not to embarrass or to shame or to titillate anybody.”

In an interview on Monday, Mr. O’Brien acknowledged that for roughly 10 seconds during the 10-minute video Ms. Lonina pulled the leg of the victim, who he said cried out during the attack saying “no,” “stop” and “help me.” It was not clear though that she intended to help the victim, he said.

“For the most part she is just streaming it on the Periscope app and giggling and laughing,” Mr. O’Brien said.

Ms. Lonina did not call 911, he added.

Court records showed no attorney listed for Mr. Gates.

The authorities also charged Ms. Lonina with an additional felony for photographing her friend in the nude on Feb. 26, the night before the assault, Mr. O’Brien said.

The defendants each face more than 40 years in prison if convicted, Mr. O’Brien said. Court records show Ms. Lonina was released Friday on a bond of $125,000, while Mr. Gates remained incarcerated after his bond was set at $300,000.

Since Twitter introduced Periscope last spring, it has been used for more than 100 million broadcasts. Perhaps inevitably, people have also deployed it to showcase themselvesbreaking the law. The platform’s guidelines ban “explicit graphic content.”